spettitt

No worries, thanks for clarifying. In my case I have no desire to use spot colours, but the destination print software is hard coded to look for a spot colour of a certain name to trigger some extra functionality. It's not a big deal though, the workaround is relatively easy, just would have saved me a step!

This isn't really the sector Vectorworks is designed for, but I would like to know if it's possible to define named Spot Colours in a PDF, as sometimes happens in the printed graphics industry when exchanging artwork via PDF. It would be ideal to not have to use Illustrator or InDesign or something similar, as the content/artwork is already based in Vectorworks for other aspects of manufacturing. I'm not sure which PDF library Vectorworks uses under-the-hood and whether that library would support it, but it would be interesting if it is possible. Thanks

You can actually remove the CTP_ prefix now if you want, in ConnectCAD settings. Certainly for 2024 onwards anyway. Probably best done at the start of a new file rather than mid way through. If you still want to show in worksheets which devices are panels and which are something else, you can use the Device Type field which should show a value of 'Custom Panel' for any devices of that type - i.e. thing that used to have the CTP_ prefix.

I have logged this now, but after having messed with it for a while longer, I found that assigning the symbol resources to classes in the RM improved the behaviour, so it's a VE. So for the moment, I can use Audio-Control etc., even though I'd prefer CC-Equipment-Graphics-Detail in future if the behaviour was changed.

Thanks Nikolay. When you say: I'm afraid I can't reproduce this behaviour. Here, the entire contents of this symbol are on CC-Equipment-Graphics-General: which is visible in the design layer, but the resulting viewport has this class off. I will video and log it.

I'm trying to improve our content libraries such that running CRE will mean our detailed symbols are visible without adjusting the VP classes. I did have them in CC-Equipment-Graphics-Detail but this always had to be enabled, so I moved them to CC-Equipment-Graphics-General, as if people don't want to see them they can just disable the symbol on the Equipment Items. But then, CC-Equipment-Graphics-General was left invisible by the CRE command on the next run. I then thought about the Spotlight content classes - but sometimes i.e. Audio-Control is set to visible, sometimes hidden, and I'm not sure why. I'd also rather not use them as there is loads of equipment that doesn't fit logically in to just Audio/Lighting/Video. Is there a list of the classes the CRE command will make visible, or some information on the logic it uses if it's not a static list, please?

Hello, I have some Data Manager mappings that populate some record fields. One of these allows a socket to get the Device UUID of it's parent device: =OBJECTDATA('eval socket device', 'DevUUID', 'Self') This works great for sockets directly in a device - but doesn't return a value for sockets inside Adapters. I would ideally like to expand my Data Manager formula to return the parent Device for adapter sockets as well. I found 'eval adapter plug device' - this doesn't work, I'm assuming as it is intended to be ran in context of the whole Adapter. Is such a formula possible, please? Replicated here in a worksheet, but the worksheet isn't the end goal - the record values will be collected by script.

I'm curious how other people deal with arena rigging overlays from a single touring plot. We have various methods we use, but want to see if anyone has a workflow they really like. Scenario: - We would have a 'master' Vectorworks file for a tour, containing all of our truss, loads and hoists. For other reasons, this is structured such that every truss (or named structure, like a ladder) is a design layer. - We have ten incoming DWGs from arenas that we need to overlay our touring plot on to, to produce PDFs and DWGs. - As usual for each venue, some trusses/hoists will stay where they are, whereas some will nudge on beam or are in a totally impossible position and have to move. Naturally, that comes with a recalc. We wouldn't want to make ten copies of our master VWX file, as any updates/additions to the touring plot wouldn't carry through. Current best effort is referencing the master VWX and a given venue DWG in to it's own VWX file, and for any trusses that are changing specific to that venue, turning them off from the master reference and copying in a local version of that truss. Just curious if we are missing any particular tricks. I feel like DLVPs could be a factor, but sometimes it's hoists moving along a truss, rather than the whole truss+hoist system moving.

Not here - and if you work for any sort of organisation where an inventory can be used in multiple places (a rental house like us, or a venue that shares stock across multiple auditoria, or...), it falls apart. And if we run out of something - we'll just subhire the extra rather than change the design from what it needs to be. I get that the inventory thing might be useful for a certain slice of users - but it's frustrating we all have to deal with something that should be an off-by-default feature, IMO. We don't use the replace truss functions as they are harder work than just drawing the correct configuration next to it and doing a bulk move-by-point of all of the loads/hoists.

Hi Nikolay, No worries, thanks, I thought I'd see what was currently possible before a VE, but I will do that. Simon

Yes, that's the one, thanks. Edit Device Array in Renumber mode will then batch-convert the naming syntax back to PanelName.01 as well, replacing the / with a .

Hello, We have a situation where we need to add a number of term panels (24 way RJ45, 16 way XLR etc.) to a project. We are not yet sure whether these will be term panels or custom panels. We need to add them to the schematic now, but when others are involved in the project later, they may change to custom panels. Is there a way to convert Term Panels to Custom Panel devices once placed that doesn't involve redrawing everything? Thanks Simon

Hello, I'm trying to arrive on a way of placing a data tag on a Drop Point (anywhere - on a design layer or sheet layer) to report the list of unique Cable IDs using that Drop Point. I may just script it, but I want to see whether any of the existing tools can already do this. We do some projects where we are not the party to a) determine cable routes or b) supply and pull cable through these routes. We specify the locations on a drawing for which cables should pop out of the wall ready for us, along with their IDs, cable types etc., but how they get between those places is not our concern, and also not something we want to spend time modelling. At the moment, we can create layout rooms and drop points, and connect our equipment to those drop points. This does well for reporting - we can generate a cable pull, summarised by cable ID, showing the source and destination rooms/drop points, without needing cable route objects modelled. But we would also like the data tag mentioned above. The data tags used by the Create Cabling Sheet command appear to reference the hidden record CC_Cabling, but these records appear to be generated and populated by that command, as the tags don't work on a Design Layer? Also, those data tags appear to report discrete schematic circuits as opposed to being summarised by any particular field. Let's suppose in my shoddy mockup below that CABLE 053 is a 4-pair cable, which is one physical jacket to pull, but four braided tails at either end. Let's say we use the CABLE 053 as the common cable ID and 1, 2, 3 etc as the unique circuit reference for each tail. The data tag placed by the Create Cabling Sheet command lists each schematic circuit, whereas it would be beneficial to have it summarised by the Cable field, such that it only reports here once. I guess ideally, this would be a selectable field, as I know some users use the Cable field for other things. Is there a way to achieve this at the moment please? Should the CC_Cabling record be unavailable in a design layer, I suppose I might have a script that builds the list of circuits for each drop point and summarises the unique Cable values in the list. This script would need re-running to refresh the data though, so an automated solution would be nice. Thanks

And if bonus points are on offer, add a 4th column as =IMAGE to get the image of the symbol

I think I might have a scripted solution for you. In your worksheet, configure it thus: Then make a new Vectorscript script in your current file and put the below in it. In the RM, click New Resource, then Script, put it in any script palette you like, and just be sure to name it whatever the RUNSCRIPT command is looking for. PROCEDURE GetPanelLayoutInfo(h:HANDLE); VAR hParent : HANDLE; BEGIN hParent := GetParent(h); WSScript_SetResStr( GetRField(hParent, 'PanelLayout', 'DeviceName') ); END; PROCEDURE Test; BEGIN GetPanelLayoutInfo(WSScript_GetObject); END; RUN(Test); The critical thing this script is doing, that I don't think is possible with stock features alone, is the 'GetParent' call - this is gets the handle of the parent object of the panel connector (which is the panel layout), and then returns it's device name. To the column in the worksheet. Then make sure both of the database columns are set to 'summarize': And it should give you this - quantities of connectors per panel